Committees Add More Value to National Pork Board, Data Center Bill Blocked

The National Pork Board works on behalf of more than 60,000 U.S. pork producers and recently announced plans to establish six new advisory committees within its 15-member producer board. CEO David Newman explains how the new committees will support pork producers.

“Standing up these advisory committees adds in additionally nearly six layers. A way to think about this is to add six more layers to that, where we have these tentacles to the industry, be that the producers or allied industry members or our state pork associations. How we get those individuals into the committee structure to provide in an advisory function guidance for our board of directors and our staff on how we carry out our strategic mission.”

Newman says the advisory committees will allow the pork board to focus more closely on key areas for America's hog farmers. One of which, in particular, has the goal of driving demand for pork while reaching new consumers. “New cuts. How do we think about product development? How do we think about product quality? By product quality, I mean the consumer eating experience.” The National Pork Board's David Newman and the U.S. Senate has blocked a bill that would ban the sale of federal public lands for data center development after reports surfaced that the Trump administration was looking at more than 17,000 acres of public land to build 12 data centers.